National police chief Sveinung Sponheim told public broadcaster NRK that the gunman’s Internet postings “suggest that he has some political traits directed toward the right, and anti-Muslim views, but whether that was a motivation for the actual act remains to be seen.”

I can’t possibly imagine that his anti-Muslim views would have motivated this kind of a thing. Unless his plan was to somehow blame it on Muslim terrorists and incite further violence against ’em, but… if so, boy did he mess that up.

“There could be a lot of theories on who is behind this, but our first suspicions are directed towards al-Qaeda because leaders of the network have, on multiple occasions, put Norway on the list of targets for possible attacks,” Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, said by phone. “Two factors that have contributed to this are Norway’s role in the war on terror and in Afghanistan in particular.”

Contradicting assertions of some U.S. officials that bin Laden was running a “command and control” center from the walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, officials say he clearly wasn’t in control of al-Qaida, although he was trying to remain involved or at least influential.

“He was like the cranky, old uncle that people weren’t listening to,” said a U.S. official who had been briefed on the evidence collected from the Abbottabad compound and who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. “The younger guys had never worked directly with him. They did not take everything he said as right.”

Makes sense, though. If you’re a plucky, young upstart in Al Qaeda, the last thing you want to do is align yourself with the guy that the entire world is watching closely.

On the other hand, it leaves you wondering just how much of a “treasure trove” bin Laden’s computer really was if he was detached from the group.